Julie Stortz, M.D., a fourth-year resident with the UF department of surgery, received the New Investigator Award from the Shock Society. The award, which includes a plaque, $650 and a $1,000 travel grant, was presented June 4 at the Shock Society’s annual meeting in Fort Lauderdale. She was among five finalists selected by a panel of past society presidents.

Stortz and her colleagues seek to determine the presence and effects of immunosuppression on sepsis survivors who develop chronic critical illness, or CCI, compared to patients who rapidly recover from sepsis. Their work suggests that there is biomarker and clinical evidence of prolonged immune suppression in ICU patients who initially survive sepsis.

Sepsis, which can be life-threatening, is an illness or complication in which the body has a severe and overwhelming response to infection. That response can lead to tissue damage, organ failure and death.

To be eligible for the New Investigator Award, applicants must be predoctoral students or research fellows with no more than two years in postdoctoral research training, and they must submit an abstract to the Shock Society Annual Meeting as the first author.

Applicants also agree to publish their work in the SHOCK journal if accepted for publication. A paper by Stortz and colleagues — “Evidence for Persistent Immune Suppression in Patients who Develop Chronic Critical Illness after Sepsis” — is currently under review.